Circle Game
by orbythesea
Summary: It's a bit like fencing, talking with her. Advance and retreat. Tied to 6x06. Alicia/Finn.


"We have to stop meeting like this," he murmurs, sliding into the barstool next to hers. He smiles, and she doesn't, and that's when he notices that her wine is almost gone, when he spots the empty shot glass on the bar in front of her. "Well, someone's having a lousy day," he murmurs.

"I used my daughter," she says. "Let my daughter be used. I don't— I don't even know what it was, really."

Finn nods at the bartender, gestures to Alicia as well as himself. "You know, I wake up every morning and thank God that I got pushed out of the race," he says. "So thanks for picking up that torch." He raises his glass and looks over at her, but she's leaning away from him, brows furrowed, expression confused and hurt and he doesn't know what he said, but he knows it was the wrong thing, somehow.

"Was that supposed to be funny?" she asks, and she reaches for her new drink, then hesitates. "You thank _God_ that–"

He shakes his head and, for the life of him, he doesn't know what he's doing wrong. He tells her as much and she shakes her head, dismissive, and he sighs. "You really are having a bad day," he murmurs.

"I'm sorry," she says, and Finn wonders if he believes her. "I don't like pretending to be someone I'm not," she adds, and she smiles. He doesn't know if he's ever seen someone look as sad as Alicia does when she smiles, sometimes.

"Then don't," he murmurs, and he wants to reach for her hand but she's too far away. That's the thing about Alicia, he thinks. No matter how close they might be getting, she keeps her distance. It's a bit like fencing, talking with her. Advance and retreat.

"I should go," she says, but she doesn't and Finn wonders if this is how she manages all of the people in her life, if she invites everyone around her to say something that will let her reject them. _Stay_, is his line, but he bites his tongue and doesn't say it, just to see if she will. "I don't even know why I'm doing this," she admits after a long silence.

"Running?" he asks, but he doesn't need to see her nod to know what she means.

He doesn't know why, either, but he doesn't say that. He says, "You mean you're not acting out of a purely altruistic desire to make the world a better place?" and she laughs, then. "Shocking," he teases, leans in close to whisper, "Scandalous."

"Finn." She's chiding him, a bit, scolding him. It's the kind of tone he used to use with Aidan, when he was younger, one part disbelief, two parts disapproval, the kind of tone Ann used after the miscarriage, as if she could turn him into the child they couldn't have. Finn thinks that most of the people in Alicia's life would probably back off, in this moment, would put a safe distance between them and offer up some kind of apology.

"News at eleven," he says, instead, low and conspiratorial, because the thing is, he knows better than to think that she's made of glass. He shifts to the edge of his seat, moves in even closer. "Alicia Florrick's just as human as the rest of us." He is close enough now that he can smell her perfume when she turns her head, sweet and thick, and it lingers in the air between them, makes him think of all of the words she never says. His lips are right up against her ear when he adds, "I won't tell, don't worry."

Her eyes close, for a moment, then pop open, move in a hundred directions at once and he thinks he's crossed over the line with her, thinks he probably crossed over it a while ago.

"Finn," she says again, and she's not scolding, but it is a warning, and he backs off, a bit, moves out of her personal space to reach for his glass.

"Do you believe in God?" she asks him, and he thinks _ah_, thinks that he understands her mood a bit better, now, thinks that of course, she got _that_ question and, news at eleven, the right answer is wrong.

"I was raised Catholic," he reminds her. "But I don't... I don't believe in a God that would think he belonged front-and-center like that." She seems irritated by his answer, so he goes on, adds, "I think I've lost too much to believe, anymore." It's true, but it's not something he's ever really talked about. She's the wrong person to tell, he knows, and he shakes his head. "I still like the ritual," he says. "Even if I don't believe it has the power to do any good."

She looks like she wants to say something, but she doesn't, because she never does, but she touches his knee with her own, and he doesn't know if it's comfort or understanding, but it's a gesture and he thinks it's progress, even if he doesn't know to where they're progressing. His phone rings, then, and it's work, and her partner's back in jail, so he just sighs, tells her that he has to go. _Retreat_.

* * *

><p>She doesn't say hello, just slips into the empty space between him and the blonde on the barstool next to his, the one who ignored him when he said he was kind of saving the seat and turned her back to him when Abe from Felony Appeals showed up.<p>

"Sit," he insists, trying to move off his own stool without disrupting anyone.

"I'm fine," she insists, but she takes the seat anyway, and shakes her head when the bartender asks if she wants tequila or wine to start. "Scotch," she says, clearing her throat. "Neat."

Alicia doesn't say anything after that, and Finn wonders why she came at all, because for all that they've fallen into this ritual, it's not a set date, and she doesn't owe him her presence, doesn't owe him anything at all. He doesn't know what she wants from him, either, and he tries a joke but just stares past him, as if he's speaking some other language, and she doesn't even crack a smile.

She takes a sip of her scotch and closes her eyes and Finn, he watches, watches the lines of her eyes and her mouth and it occurs to him that he's never taken the time to really _look_ at her before. She's beautiful, he thinks, but it feels prosaic, thinking that. It feels cruel, too, and selfish, because she's so very clearly hurting and all he can think about is favorable genetics. She is beautiful, though, and maybe it's genetics but there's more to it than that, he thinks, because right now–right now her eyes are closed and her lips are drawn into a tight line and the grey of her dress looks like armor. She shouldn't be beautiful, right now, and he wants to ask her to lay down her burdens, wants to ask her to trust him but, well, he thinks that he knows better than that.

"My son," he says after the silence has gone on for so long that it hurts, biting his tongue as hard as he is. "Aidan. He told me that he's thinking about maybe going to law school."

Alicia looks at him then, blankly, and he sees the water in her eyes, the tears that she refuses to cry and he decides to just keep talking because maybe the distraction is good.

"I'm trying to talk him out of it, but he's stubborn," Finn continues. "That, he gets from his stepmother, obviously," he adds, as if Alicia has any frame of reference for that, as if she has any way of knowing that it's a joke. "Ex-stepmother, I guess," he adds after a moment, and that hits him, suddenly, in a way that _ex-wife_ never has.

She blinks, and for a moment it looks like she might say something, might ask him to elaborate, but she doesn't.

"I don't know how to make it better," Finn says, softly, and he feels helpless, sitting there in the bar. There are tears in her eyes but he's never actually seen her cry, and he wonders if Aidan thinks of Ann as an ex-anything. Aidan doesn't talk about that sort of thing, though. Not with Finn anyway.

Alicia sighs, and shakes her head. "Will used to throw a baseball against the wall, when he didn't know what else to do," she says. "Through a window once, too. The night his father died." Her voice is low and soft, and it's strangely intimate, this confession that isn't even really hers to confess. And that's the thing about her, really. She only ever invites him over, she never invites him in.

"Are you saying I should find you a baseball?" he teases, gently. He's still not sure how he's supposed to talk about Will, _if_ he's supposed to talk about Will.

"No, I meant—" She shakes her head.

He thinks that he knows what she was going to say, though. She meant for him, he thinks, and he wonders why she didn't finish, wonders who she thinks she's protecting. "I know," he says. "But I'm fine."

"We're moving offices," she says. "My firm. So I have to—I have to go."

_Of course you do_, he thinks.

* * *

><p>He steps past her secretary and into her office, looks around and lets out a long whistle. "I like the new digs," he tells her. "They suit you." He's been to the firm before, of course, and it's funny because he knows that she was here for years, knows that this was where she learned to be a lawyer again, but he's never seen her here, has never even thought about it. It suits her, he thinks, suits a part of her, anyway. It's sedate and conservative and he's visited a hundred offices that look just like this one. It suits the part of her that she wants the world to see, anyway, but it's impersonal and distant, and he doesn't know if that's by design.<p>

"Home sweet home?" she teases, arching an eyebrow.

She looks smaller, here, or maybe it's just that her new office is practically the size same size as her old firm and he never sees her alone, anymore. "I don't know," he says. "I think the old place suited you pretty well, too." He kind of mumbles it, and it seems silly to avoid looking at her, when all they're talking about is office space. It's not, though, and he wonders if she thinks of her time in that old warehouse as an experiment, some casual flirtation. The wall behind her is tasteful and neutral and he misses the exposed brick, misses the way it brought out the flecks of red in her hair, the way it breathed life into her cheeks. He has to stop thinking about her like that.

"You were in with Diane?" she says, nodding her head to her partner through the glass.

"I was," he confirms. His eyes flick to the pictures of her children behind her desk, young and carefree. They were on her old desk, too, and he can't help but smile, seeing them here, now. It humanizes the space. Makes it hers, somehow. "Is Grace still pissed at you?" he asks, eyes settling on her daughter's smile. "Or— I mean, do you still feel guilty, about—"

"I— I honestly don't know." Alicia shakes her head, resigned, and he can't help the way it makes him smile.

"Teenagers," he says with an elaborate sigh and an exaggerated eyeroll and he waits for it, waits for her, until he sees the smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "You working late tonight?" he asks. "Or should I expect you at the usual place?"

"Not too late," she says. "I— " She frowns, squints at him. "Sorry, but you've got— Is that a stain, or—?"

He looks down and pulls the lapel of his jacket aside and winces. The pen in his breast pocket must be leaking, and there's a navy stain, spreading out against his chest and it's wet and dark and he knows that she's still talking, knows that the screaming he hears isn't real, knows that it's ink, just _ink_, that's spreading out over his chest, that he's not in court, that he's not bleeding but– "I have to go," he says, abrupt, blinking back to reality.

"Get some water on it," Alicia suggests. "And I've got towels, in the bathroom—" She points to the door behind her desk and he nods, slips inside and leans back against the wall, lets himself breathe for a moment. He splashes cold water on his face and dabs, halfheartedly, at the stain on his shirt and he doesn't really know why he bothers, except that she suggested it. He thinks about that day in her old office, the way she laughed off a pie stain and the report on the shooting, back when he was the candidate, not her. She seemed so happy in her detachment, and— It probably was ruined, that dress, and his shirt is obviously ruined, but now he's standing in her bathroom thinking about stained blue dresses and politics and the way she's one half of Chicago's own _Bill-and-Hillary_, and he can't help but laugh at the absurdity of all of it.

"Finn? You okay in there?" Her voice is accompanied by a knock from the other side of the door.

"Fine," he says, opening the door a bit to let her see that yes, he's fine, and no, his shirt isn't worth saving. "Care to join me?" he teases, arching an eyebrow and trying for something exaggerated and seductive.

It's a joke, but she doesn't laugh. She freezes, and for a moment she looks like she did that day at the hospital, last night at the bar, and the pieces all come falling into place and he gets it, suddenly, her silence last night and the way she fits but doesn't fit in this space and when Grant was on trial he always met Will in the conference room but of _course_ this was— And of course, they probably—

"I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't mean—"

"It's fine," she whispers, but it's clearly not.

* * *

><p>She doesn't stop in for a drink. He waits, sips his bourbon slowly then switches to water and he waits, but the minutes turn into hours and it's not a set date, but it's been every night for a week or so and it's strange, not seeing her. He orders another drink because he feels bad for the bartender and decides to give her ten more minutes. When the space beside him is still empty as the minutes tick by, he drains his glass in a single swallow, leaves money on the bar, and walks out the door.<p>

He meant to go home, but he hears himself rattling off her address to the cab driver, and he doesn't know what to make of the fact that he knows her address from memory.

She answers the door in soft pants and an oversized cardigan and sighs when she sees him, wraps the sweater tightly around her body. "It's late," she says, softly, stepping out of the doorway so there is space for him to step inside.

"I—" He doesn't know what to say, doesn't even really know why he came. "I was worried," he says. "After today." He stays in the doorway, hovering, because for all that she's made space for him, he thinks that she doesn't really want him there. It's funny, he thinks, the way he's only ever been inside her home as a client, the way their friendship plays out publicly, in bars and offices and courtrooms. A part of him knows that it's better the way it is now, and he doesn't really want to go back to the way things were before, when she looked like she might shatter at any moment. Still, he misses the intimacy of meeting in her home, of listening to her shout legal advice while she brushed her teeth and he sat on the corner of her unmade bed.

"Finn…." She shakes her head. "Do you want a glass of wine?" she asks. "I want a glass of wine."

"I— Sure," he says. He does step inside, then closes the door behind him and follows her to her kitchen.

"Elfman," she starts, pouring for herself. "He's doesn't want me drinking in public." It's a lie, but he lets her have it, lets her offer excuses to spare his feelings, as if his feelings are something worth sparing. She starts to pour for him, as well, then hesitates. "I think I've got a bottle of scotch, in the back of a cabinet, somewhere, if you'd rather."

"Wine is fine," he assures her, and she looks almost disappointed. It's another piece, he thinks, falling into place, somehow, but he's not quite sure what the puzzle is. No, that's not true. The puzzle is Will, and will always be Will and Alicia and the questions that Finn knows not to ask. If he's learned anything since the shooting, it's that the details don't matter. There are things he can't remember, like who shouted first or whether it was the shot or the screams that made him turn, but the important parts are there when he closes his eyes. And that's the thing about Alicia, too, and the puzzles that she constructs around her. The details aren't important, because he's pretty sure that she sees Will when the lights go down, hears him when she searches for words. Will makes her transparent, Finn thinks, is the only thing that makes her transparent, and she doesn't have to say a word for him to know.

So, Finn thinks, she's working in Will's office and offering him a drink from the bottle that she probably kept for him, for late nights after work or weekends when her children were with the husband she embraces in public but whose touch she flinched away from, after her announcement. He wonders if she's trying to recreate something or trying to bury the past, and he'd ask her, but he's not sure that she even knows.

"Grace is asleep," she says, and he wonders why she's telling him this. He wonders if it's a warning to keep his voice down or an assurance that his visit will go unnoticed, as if his presence in her life is okay so long as it's non-disruptive. He kind of feels bad for Will, thinking about it, because he can't imagine she ever invited him over for a family dinner, can't imagine that he ever even met her kids.

"Aidan looked at a practice LSAT and decided against law school," Finn says. "He's talking about becoming a teacher, now."

"Zach's—" She shakes her head. "I don't actually know," she admits. She looks away just as Finn looks up and it's always this way, with them, he thinks.

"Freshman year was rough," he says, after a moment. "I think it's easier to be a parent when kids are little and not really people, yet."

Alicia looks up and smiles at him, and her eyes are sad but the smile is real. "I used to be such a great mom," she says in a whisper, and Finn nods, watching her.

He wants to tell her that she's still a great mom, but he doubts that she'll believe him. He doesn't know, anyway. Maybe she's not. "I wasn't a great dad, when he was younger," Finn admits, staring down into his wine glass. "I like to think that I've made up for it though, over the years. And Ann—" he sighs. "She made it easier."

"How's he handling it?" she asks. "The divorce. I–"

He wonders if she's asking out of selfishness or genuine curiosity about his life, if she's seeking advice or just making conversation. "I wish I knew," he admits. "But he's–" _He's a lot like you_, he thinks. "He doesn't talk about the things that bother him." Aidan has that in common with Alicia and with Ann and Leah and every woman Finn has ever loved. He blinks. "He was pretty pissed," he admits.

"Peter and I," she starts. "We– our careers are so intertwined that it just doesn't make sense, but I– I think it bothers Zach. I think– I know that he thinks that I'm a hypocrite. Maybe I am."

He wonders what her life would have been if she had been allowed to experience it in private, wonders if she would have divorced after the hooker, or sometime later, wonders if she would have divorced at all. "Of course you're a hypocrite," he says, smiling. "You're human."

"I thought I was a saint," she teases. "An atheist saint."

He laughs at that and she shushes him with a cautionary _Grace_, but then she's laughing too.

_She's okay_, he thinks, and that's why he came so it should be his cue to go, but he's come to love the sound of her laugh, and he lets it draw him in, even as he knows that she'll push him away the moment he gets close.

It's well after midnight when he finally does go, and she catches him in the doorway with a hand on his wrist. "Finn," she says, softly. "I–" She doesn't say more, after that, just presses her lips to his cheek. "Thanks."


End file.
